


hands like an ocean

by pendules



Series: worth fighting for [2]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, M/M, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 03:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11072979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: The first time Seth kissed him, for real, not fuelled by alcohol and desperation, slow and sweet and deliberate, he'd felt something he's never really known before. The best word he can find for it isbelonging. It felt right and real and honest. And it scared the shit out of him.





	hands like an ocean

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be about Dean's trust issues (kind of inspired by the song [Issues](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dqMyh4ILIg), hah, which is great btw) and somehow turned out to also be about [comic book!Dean's beloved junkheap of a car](http://dudeambrose.tumblr.com/post/161339827798/why-am-i-so-emotional-about-comic-bookdean) which I unsurprisingly have a lot of feelings about. I don't know, man.
> 
> The song mentioned is [The Weight by The Band](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFqb1I-hiHE).
> 
> This also kind of references my other fic, [_worth fighting for_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10796124).

Raw's in Vegas that week and Dean sends him a text before the show just saying: _wanna get a drink after?_

It's not _too_ weird of a request, all things considered, but Seth still takes a while just staring at it, biting his lip, contemplating his response before sending back, going for as casual a tone as possible: _like, just us?_

_yeah, sure, we can just hang. that cool with you?_

He types out _yeah, sounds good_ and hits send before he can freak out too much about it. 

It's not really a big deal, right?

They've hung out, chatted, since Dean's been back on Raw, but it's usually been in chaotic locker rooms, or as part of a larger group in crowded bars surrounded by music and laughter and drunken, overlapping conversations. They haven't really had the chance to talk one-on-one since the night after the triple threat, so this is — new. Different. A bit unnerving.

It gets more so when Dean pulls up in front of his hotel driving the same old piece of junk he's been driving for more than fifteen years.

He has to admit that a part of him found it charming at first but it wore off about the fifth time they ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere with Dean insisting he could have her back up and running in fifteen minutes tops and always, _always_ failing. Roman downright _refused_ to drive with him after the first couple months.

"Seriously? We're driving _this_?"

"What? You _love_ this car," Dean says, almost scandalised.

"I do _not_ love this car. I have _never_ loved this car. I am, in fact, _terrified_ of this car."

"Seriously, Rollins? You can jump off the top of a damn steel cage but you're afraid of little ol' Shelly?"

It should be ridiculous but it's also hard not to be at least a little charmed by the endearment. He isn't going to admit it, though.

"That's different, and you know it," Seth says pointedly.

"You _used_ to love this car. Then you got all fancy and splurged on one of those pretentious douchebag electrical things." He says it with a frankly impressive amount of disgust.

"It's called a Tesla. And it's good for the environment," Seth says huffily.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Just get the hell in, man."

"If I die in this car, I'm gonna haunt your ass," Seth promises before getting in the passenger seat, slamming the door and securely buckling his seatbelt. He's glad it actually still works. He even closes his eyes and says a brief prayer as they take off, atheism be damned, ignoring Dean as he calls him a sissy.

*

He gets through an hour and about three drinks before he says something stupid. Maybe he should count that as a win. But there's no real bright side to him blurting out the one dumb, intrusive thought that he cannot get out of his head no matter how hard he tries.

"So, is this, like, a date?" It's a ridiculous notion, obviously, given all they've been through. Something as simple as two people at a bar, having drinks, shooting the shit — but it feels like more, deep down, a more intimate connection. Maybe it's the way Seth can't seem to forget how close Dean is sitting to him. Close enough to smell his shampoo and feel his warmth and his jean-clad knee intermittently brushing against his own. Making a slight flush crawl up the back of his neck. Maybe it's the way Dean glances at him out of the corner of his eye when he thinks Seth won't notice. A look almost of hunger and wistfulness. Almost like he needs to catch his breath.

Dean just looks mildly alarmed now.

"Sorry, sorry, just forget I said that," he says, immediately cringing. He wonders, then, why he was even born with the ability of speech. He wonders if he should just get up and leave right then. "I just do this thing —"

"What thing?"

"This thing where I overanalyse everything and need everything to make sense all the time."

"Oh, yeah, you _do_ do that. I used to hate that." Dean looks almost fondly nostalgic.

"Well, except _you_ , obviously." He's blaming the alcohol now. He takes no responsibility whatsoever for wherever this leads.

"Except me what?"

"You've _never_ made sense. You've never fit in a nice, little box. Or a neat, clear category. You _still_ don't."

Rival, friend, brother, enemy, wrestling soulmate, almost — something. None of them quite fit, really. None of them adequately describe what Dean Ambrose has become to him.

"And is that a bad thing?" There's something tempting in Dean's voice now, low and intent.

"I don't know," Seth says honestly.

"You gonna _solve_ me, Architect?" Dean teases.

"No," Seth says definitively.

"Well, can't say I blame ya. Probably wouldn't be too pleasant an experience."

"It's not that. It's just — you're _you_. And that's good enough. I wouldn't want to change anything."

"Not even with _us_?"

Seth just looks at him for a moment and then shakes his head. "Nope, past is the past. I fucked up. I own that. I'm just glad we can sit next to each other like this right now."

Dean's hand is next to his on the bartop now and it's only for a fraction of a second but he swears he deliberately grazes his pinkie finger along Seth's.

"What about… _future_ us?" he asks, as carefully as he says anything.

"I don't know. Maybe we'll just have to wait and see."

Dean takes that in for a second before nodding. "Okay, then."

*

Dean drops him back off at the hotel, actually gets out of the car and walks him to the front door, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans. 

"So, hypothetically, if this _was_ a date," Dean muses, not catching his eye. "This would be that weird moment where we decide whether to just go for the goodnight kiss or to do that awkward half-hug thing, right?"

"But it _isn't_ , right? So you could just say fuck that and do whatever you want," Seth suggests.

Dean, being Dean, just shrugs and leans in to plant a wet kiss on his cheek before patting the same spot with his palm and taking off like a whirlwind, leaving Seth staring after him, wide-eyed and dazed.

He's halfway to the car when he turns around on the sidewalk and says, "Fuck it," loudly, presumably to the universe, and then he's stalking right back up to Seth and kissing the absolutely holy hell out of him.

"You're so drunk," Seth says, grinning, when they part for a moment.

"Fuck no."

"You're _definitely_ drunk."

Dean doesn't respond that time, just pushes him back against the nearest solid surface and devours his mouth again.

They don't stop for a long time, pressed up against the front door of the hotel at 2am, Dean's hands in his hair and tongue in his mouth, Seth's hands tucked under his leather jacket and running all over Dean's body, one leg pressed between his legs — until they're interrupted by someone clearing their throat sharply and they abruptly separate to see an old man standing on the sidewalk regarding them, utterly nonchalant, like this is an everyday occurrence (he figures this _is_ Vegas, after all).

"Get a room," is all he tells him as they remove themselves from the entranceway. After apologising profusely, they end up doubled over on the sidewalk laughing like some dumb teenagers.

"I should probably go," Dean says when they've caught their breaths.

Seth feels disappointed despite himself. Somehow their hands had gotten tangled together and it's hard to bring himself to let go. It feels good, feels _right_. He wants to say _Stay. Please_ , but he doesn't want to ask for too much all at once. Tonight already feels like a wild dream suddenly bursting into life.

Dean kisses him one more time, soft and lingering, before getting in Shelly and speeding down the empty street and out into the night.

*

Dean's staring at his coffee when he half-mumbles it to Roman at breakfast.

"I sort of made out with Seth last night."

Roman whistles under his breath. "Shit. I was beginning to think that would never happen."

"What? You knew that this was a — thing?"

Roman just looks at him like he's an idiot. Which isn't an entirely unfamiliar expression coming from him.

"I have _eyes_. And I mean, there's chemistry and then there's _chemistry_ , you know —" 

"So, you knew this was a thing the whole time?" Dean asks, bewildered.

"Yeah, man, didn't _you_?" Roman's look is almost pitying.

"I don't think I knew — _really_ knew until — well, until, you know." Until a chairshot to the back, until Seth's disdainful expression and the poisonous words dripping off his lips — _never gave a damn about you in the first place_. Until it was all ripped away from him in the blink of an eye. All the possibility and promise. All the hope for the future. 

"Shit," is all Roman says.

"Yeah," Dean agrees.

"But it's different now, right?"

"Yeah, but — Fuck, man, how do we even _do_ this? Go from _that_ to what, holding hands and picnics in the fucking park?"

"It's definitely not simple. But if you want it — _really_ want it — I'm sure you can make it work. Somehow."

"What if it just gets fucked up again? What if it's a terribly fucking bad idea?" Every instinct in his body is telling him to run from it, and Dean lives on instinct, but what if — what if they were wrong this time. Or what if they _aren't_.

"It probably is," Roman admits. "But are you gonna regret it if you don't try?"

It feels like a question that doesn't need an answer, at least not right now, so Dean just holds Roman gaze for a moment and doesn't say anything.

*

They drive out into the middle of the desert, park and lie on the hood to watch the stars. The night is as clear as it ever is and it feels like the sky is neverending.

"Feels like you can see the curve of the earth from here," Seth breathes.

"It's so quiet and empty, man, you can pretend that you're the only person alive on the planet."

"I see why you like it out here." Dean's a different creature than he was three years ago — still incomprehensible, but older somehow, wiser. More still and reflective. Content, even. There's a part of him that's scared that maybe this Dean is better off without him, that there's no place for him here, that he's just another reminder of all the demons and pain that's plagued him his whole life. 

"Being alone was never a problem for me."

"I'm not that good at it," Seth admits, for the first time, to anyone.

"It's lonely at the top of the mountain."

"Lonelier still when you're falling all the way off of it."

"You're _not_ alone, you know."

"Maybe I should be. Maybe I deserve that."

"I don't want you to be," Dean confesses breathily.

Seth exhales before turning on his side and gently pressing his lips to Dean's.

*

It's lazy, almost drugged, and it's almost too natural, too easy to get lost in it like you can get lost in this desert. 

Dean kisses back because he _has_ to, because maybe it's the last time, because maybe it's not enough to overcome everything that's come before it, to mend the scars and rebuild the bridges. 

Hearts aren't like bodies or cars or _things_ — you can't fix the cracks so easily, can't put the pieces back together with hours of labour and care and attention until it's as good as new. There's always a weak spot, a permanent mark; there's no forgetting.

They're quiet on the way back to town except for the low hum of the stereo playing an old country rock song. The radio's been busted forever and all that's left is a bunch of old cassettes someone left in her since around 1985. He doesn't listen to anything else in this car; it doesn't feel right.

Dean stops in front of the hotel and Seth rests his hand on Dean's on the gearshift but he tenses up instinctively and Seth recoils a little as if he sees something change in his face. He gradually lets go and Dean clenches his jaw and just looks straight ahead as he exits the car.

*

He lies awake for hours thinking about it.

The first time Seth kissed him, for real, not fuelled by alcohol and desperation, slow and sweet and deliberate, he'd felt something he's never really known before. The best word he can find for it is _belonging_. It felt right and real and honest. And it scared the shit out of him.

Because this is _Seth_. Who's betrayed him once before. Who can easily do it again. Can rip his heart to shreds. Can tear his entire world down and leave only ashes and ruin around him. Can leave him, cold and desolate, on a whim. Again. 

It's not that he doesn't trust him now. He does. He believes him when he says he wants to make it right, that he'll never hurt him like that again. But — shit happens. People fuck up. God knows _Dean's_ made a lot of bad choices in his life. Seth wants to be better, wants to be the person Dean's been in love with for a hell of a long time, but he still has an unfortunate habit of doing precisely what's the worst thing for himself, of running towards his own doom. It's hard not to wonder, not to be on his guard.

*

Dean's ignoring him. Dean's _totally_ ignoring him. He has to be. And not like before when he hated his fucking guts and probably pretended he didn't exist or was dead in a ditch somewhere — but in a pretending to be busy, not responding to texts, always missing him by a minute kind of way. It can't be coincidental. They had two great times, but something was off about Dean the other night in the car. Maybe it was just the whole stupid _what happens in Vegas_ cliche. Maybe he fucked it up like he feared. Maybe he scared him off, came on too strong. But Dean has to _know_ — he told him as much weeks ago. 

It's a couple weeks later when he finally gets a moment to talk to him privately in the locker room.

"Hey," he says faintly.

"Hey," Dean says, barely even looking up at him.

"We haven't really talked in a while —" Seth begins, casually.

"Yeah, man, listen, I don't think we should — I think maybe it wasn't the best idea. Too much, too fast, you know." The way he says it is cold and calculated and so unlike Dean that it throws him completely for a loop.

"What? _Dean_ —"

Dean finally levels a look at him and it hits him with the force of a truck.

"You don't trust me," he realises, his heart sinking like an anvil.

"Can you blame me?" Dean says, almost wearily.

It's not malicious, just honest, but it feels like he's been punched in the face. His eyes start burning uncontrollably.

"No, I can't," Seth says, shaking his head, throat feeling raw and constricted.

He should probably turn and leave then, but it can't end like this. _They_ can't. Not at least without him trying one more time.

He takes a deep breath to steady himself before saying it. He's not sure that Dean's even listening anymore, or if he even cares, but he has to say it now.

"I don't know what I can do — There's _nothing_ I can do to change any of it. And I understand if you don't want this — I'd understand if you never wanted to _see_ me again. But I don't think it's just me that's feeling this. And if it is, just tell me and I'll pretend it never happened."

Dean sighs and doesn't say anything. The silence threatens to drown him.

He figures that's it, it's done, but then just as he's about to go, Dean says, "I just — I need some time, okay? To process all this shit."

Seth nods absently, blinking away tears. Then he turns and leaves the locker room without glancing back, trying as hard as he can to not feel like his heart's just been ripped out and stomped on.

*

He catches up with Roman when they're both leaving the gym the next morning and spills his guts. He wonders exactly how much Dean's told him. Knowing Roman, he probably didn't need to say much for him to figure out most if not all of it on his own.

"Having your heart broken sucks, man."

"Yeah, that's never fun," Roman says sympathetically.

"I think — I think that was the first time."

"What? Seriously?"

"Yeah."

" _Damn_."

"Yeah, I know."

"Dean's — Dean's fragile, you know. He's been through a lot. It's hard for him to trust people. But I know from experience that it's also really hard for him to stop caring about them too."

"I was delusional, you know? I thought it could be easy. I was a fucking idiot."

"No, I think you put your heart out there for the first time ever. And I think that was brave."

"I think I just wanted this for a really long time," Seth tells him quietly.

Roman puts a gentle but steady hand on Seth's shoulder. "It'll be okay."

*

It's late, after a gruelling week of shows, and Seth just wants to pass out for a long time but then someone's knocking on his door.

He practically drags himself across the room to open it.

Dean doesn't look drunk but he looks about as wrecked as Seth feels. Maybe he's been doing the same thing — throwing himself completely into the job, going harder than ever in the ring and working out nonstop in between — just to stop thinking about it, to stop _feeling_ it, to stop the weight of it from crushing him if he lets it for more than a second.

Dean just stands in the doorway and starts rambling the way he does sometimes when there's too much stuff going on in his head that he needs to get out.

"I was driving around and this _song_ came on, you know? And I remembered one evening we were driving along this deserted stretch of highway in the middle of bumfuck Indiana or something and we got a flat. And after I fixed it, we just sat on the hood and threw back a few cold ones and listened to The Band and watched the sun set."

Seth nods. "I remember that," he says, voice hoarse.

"That's what I remembered, you know, that night in June. I looked up at you with that chair in your hands and I remember thinking _This is the same guy I listened to that song with._ I think that's what fucked me up the most. Not having _that_ guy next to me."

"I'm _not_ that guy anymore," Seth says apologetically.

"Neither am I," Dean tells him.

"We can't go back."

"I know, but you were right. I still feel that same thing too."

"So, what now?" Seth asks tentatively.

"So, _fuck it_."

Seth reaches back for him just as Dean reaches out and their bodies and lips fit together seamlessly, like they've been doing this for years. Seth's entire body relaxes into him and he feels the strongest wave of relief and contentment he's ever felt before course through him.

*

They're lying on the bed in Seth's hotel room, half-asleep, fingers intertwined in the space between them.

"I used to wish for things sometimes," Dean says after a long stretch of silence.

"Hm? Like what? That I'd get in an accident and be horribly disfigured for life?" It's only half-joking.

"No, nothing like that. Just that I'd never met you in the first place."

Seth flinches like that hurts even more than the other option. "Well, I can't say I blame you."

"Yeah, but then I realised that if I'd never met you, I'd never know what _this_ felt like. And I figured I'd take the pain and the anger and the heartache if that was the trade-off." 

"It shouldn't have been so hard for you," Seth murmurs regretfully.

Dean shrugs. "I think it's hard for everybody."

"I never expected to feel like this, you know? About _anyone_."

"Join the club," Dean says with a smirk.

"No, I mean — I didn't _want_ it. I thought it would just get in the way, make everything more messy."

"Makes sense, then, that you would fall for the biggest mess of them all," Dean says wryly.

"Yeah, of course," Seth agrees seriously.

"Should've known what you were getting into the first day I showed up driving that old heap of junk."

Seth shakes his head. "Nah, I like your car," he says earnestly.

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's like you."

"Ouch."

"No, I mean — It's been through a lot. But it always comes back. And somehow it's stronger because of it."

Dean just looks across at him before nodding just the slightest. "Okay, I'll take that."


End file.
